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One of my most popular courses at Swarthmore College focused on the challenge of how to defend against terrorism, nonviolently. Events now unfolding in France make our course more relevant than ever. (The syllabus was published in “Peace, Justice, and Security Studies: A Curriculum Guide”in 2009.) In fact, the international post-9/11 “war against terror” has been accompanied by increased actual threats of terror almost everywhere.

In the first place, who knew that non-military techniques have, in actual historical cases, reduced the threat of terror?

I gathered for the students eight non-military techniques that have worked for some country or other. The eight comprised the “toolbox” that the students had to work with. We didn’t spend time criticizing military counter-terrorism because we were more interested in alternatives.

Each student chose a country somewhere in the world that is presently threatened by terrorism and, taking the role of a consultant to that country, devised from our nonviolent toolbox a strategy for defense.

It was tough work, and highly stimulating. Most of the students had a ball, and some did brilliant strategizing.

Students especially liked brainstorming synergistic effects — what happens when technique 3 interacts with techniques 2 and 5, for example? At the time I wished we had an additional semester to handle the complexity of making the tools not just additive, but discovering how the whole became more powerful than the sum of the parts.

Some students who assumed that military defense is crucial opened to a bigger perspective. They realized that, given the success some countries have had using just two or three of the tools, there is significant untapped potential: What if countriesused all of the tools together,with the resulting synergies? For me the question arose: Why couldn’t populations rely completely on the nonviolent toolbox for their defense against terror?

What are the eight techniques?

1. Ally-building and the infrastructure of economic development

Poverty and terrorism are indirectly linked. Economic development can reduce recruits and gain allies, especially if development is done in a democratic way. The terrorism by Northern Ireland’s Irish Republican Army, for example, was strongly reduced by grassroots, job-creating, economic development.

2. Reducing cultural marginalization

As France, Britain and other countries have learned, marginalizing a group within your population is not safe or sensible; terrorists grow under those conditions. This is also true on a global level. Much marginalizing is unintentional, but it can be reduced. “Freedom of the press,” for example, transforms into “provocation” when it further marginalizes a population that is already one-down, as are Muslims in France. When Anglophone Canada reduced its marginalization, it reduced the threat of terrorism from Quebec.

Terrorism happens in a larger context and is therefore influenced by that context. Some terror campaigns have lapsed because they lost popular support. That’s because terror’s strategic use is often to gain attention, provoke a violent response and win more support in the broader population.

The rise and fall of support for terrorism is in turn influenced by social movements using people power, or nonviolent struggle. The U.S. civil rights movement brilliantly handled the Ku Klux Klan’s threat to activists, most dangerous when there was no effective law enforcement to help. The nonviolent tactics reduced the KKK’s appeal among white segregationists. Since the 1980s, pacifists and others have established an additional, promising tool: intentional and planned unarmed civilian peacekeeping. (Check out Peace Brigades International, for one example.)

4. Pro-conflict education and training

Ironically, terror often happens when a population tries to suppress conflicts instead of supporting their expression. A technique for reducing terror, therefore, is to spread a pro-conflict attitude and the nonviolent skills that support people waging conflict to give full voice to their grievances.

5. Post-terror recovery programs

Not all terror can be prevented, any more than all crime can be prevented. Keep in mind that terrorists often have the goal of increasing polarization. Recovery programs can help prevent that polarization, the cycle of hawks on one side “arming” the hawks on the other side. One place we’ve seen this cycle of violence is in the Palestine/Israel struggle.

Recovery programs build resilience, so people don’t go rigid with fear and create self-fulfilling prophecies. The leap forward in trauma counseling is relevant for this technique along with innovative rituals such as those the Norwegians used after the 2011 terrorist massacre there.

6. Police as peace officers: the infrastructure of norms and laws

Police work can become far more effective through more community policing and reduction of the social distance between police and the neighborhoods they serve. In some countries this requires re-conceptualization of the police from defenders of the property of the dominant group to genuine peace officers; witness the unarmed Icelandic police. Countries like the United States need to join the growing global infrastructure of human rights law reflected in the Land Mines Treaty and International Criminal Court, and accept accountability for their own officials who are probable war criminals.

7. Policy changes and the concept of reckless behavior

Governments sometimes make choices that invite — almost beg for — a terrorist response. Political scientist and sometime U.S. Air Force consultant Robert A. Pape showed in 2005 that the United States has repeatedly done this, often by putting troops on someone else’s land. In his recent book “Cutting the Fuse,” he and James K. Feldman give concrete examples of governments reducing the terror threat by ending such reckless behavior. To protect themselves from terror, citizens in all countries need to gain control of their own governments and force them to behave.

8. Negotiation

Governments often say “we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” but when they say that they are often lying. Governments have often reduced or eliminated terrorism through negotiation, and negotiation skills continue to grow in sophistication.

Realistic application of non-military defense against terror

At the request of a group of U.S. experts on counter-terrorism, I described our Swarthmore work and especially the eight techniques. The experts recognized that each of these tools have indeed been used in real-life situations in one place or another, with some degree of success. They also saw no problem, in principle, in devising a comprehensive strategy that would create synergies among the tools.

The problem they saw was persuading a government to take such a bold, innovative leap.

As an American, I can see the direct contradiction between, on the one hand, my government’s huge effort to convince taxpayers that we desperately need our swollen military and, on the other, a new policy that mobilizes a different kind of power for genuine, human security. I understand that for my country and for some others as well, a living revolution might need to come first.

What I like about having an alternative, non-military defense in our back pocket, though, is that it speaks to the real need of my fellow citizens for security in a dangerous world. Psychologist Abraham Maslow long ago pointed out the fundamental human need for security. Analyzing and criticizing militarism, however brilliantly, doesn’t actually enhance anyone’s security. Imagining an alternative, as my students did, may give people the psychological space they need to put energy into something more life-giving.

Our role at the grassroots

The good news is that a number of these eight techniques can be applied by civil society, without waiting for governmental leadership that may never come. Two are no-brainers: Spread the skills and strategy of nonviolent protest, and teach a pro-conflict attitude.

The Black Lives Matter movement found many white people joining in on black-initiated turf — that’s a concrete example of reducing marginalization, a concept that generates dozens of creative moves by whoever happens to be mainstream (Christian, middle class, etc.). We can also initiate recovery programs after terror has erupted in our midst, as it did during the Boston Marathon.

Activists are used to launching campaigns to force the government to give up some of its reckless policies, but may forget to frame activism that way. A scared public needs to know that activists hear the fear, and are on the side of everyone’s safety.

By my count, these five of the eight tools can be used by people taking bottoms-up intitiatives to reduce the theat of terror. They might be incorporated by the Transition Town movement and others who want to bring a holistic and positive approach to the fear that otherwise depresses and paralyzes. As usual, what helps others lightens the load for each one of us who takes that step.

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George Lakey has been active in direct action campaigns for six decades. Recently retired from Swarthmore College, he has facilitated 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national and international levels -- most recently with Earth Quaker Action Team. Among many other books and articles, he is author of “Strategizing for a Living Revolution” in David Solnit’s book Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004). His 2016 book is "Viking Economics," and in December 2018 Melville House will release "How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning."

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14 comments

Practicing all of these requires that we first recognize the primary cause of individual “terrorism” – the nation state. State terrorism is the epitome of the banality of evil. It is countless, ordinary, mostly good people accepting authority without question and following orders without considering the real life consequences of what we do. Conforming to corrupt and evil social orders, like those in most Western terrorist state, i.e. U.S., France, Israel is the primary way that people become co-dependents in the banality of terrorist evil. Our nation states sow the wind, and it is ordinary, good people who reap the whirlwind.

Keep living in your fantasy world! These barbarians aren’t gonna care ably these techniques. Also the blacklives matter movement is the perfect example of what not to do! It only divides people and is a racist group itself!

I think that people have to improve or have to teach universal bioethics and environmental ethics principles. Religions divide people in a diffrent peaces. New world and its evolved humans can organize a better world.

Thank you for a most encouraging and practical list of alternatives. These principles, as you point out, have worked in some cases but it is sad that so many countries have not tried non-violent resistance/response. They seem unable to learn from their experiences, i.e. that violence simply begets violence. I think that you also imply that nations may need to undergo a revolution in their way of living/world view. Responding to violence in kind seems to be a knee jerk reaction. I believe that the only hope for the world resides in the kind of change of mind set that you are recommending. Once again, thank you!

all good- fr my vantage as a peace and civil rts mv’t vet- i still cannot embrace purist pacifism-(I id w Bonhoeffer) tactics are important- i left a comment re George’s discussion of property destruction-
i have no problem with an action like the Media Pa break in
I believe Code Pink is, along w Plowshares, engaged currently in the most radical tactics.
inside the system, outside- according to your talents- some are less able to take risks
going to jail using the criminal in justice system (courts) for attention getting and education-
the 8 points are great- what if u were under the control of ISIS? many refugees are voting with their feet

Also, I agree with my friends at SPARK- that capitalism is the first cause of terrorism- too many of my peacenik friends are not leftists- but I am very forgiving towards peaceniks. I don’t see capitalism listed in the 8 points?

The eight tools are not causes of terrorism, any more than the tools you use to repair your house are the causes of its disrepair. Think hammer, plane, paintbrush. Maybe the city’s urban renewal program wants to bulldoze your house (the militarist response to terror) but you have a better idea for fixing it up, very specific tools that are better fitted for the job.

One option is to protest urban renewal, and there’s a growing number of people now questioning the military response to Al Qaeda/ISIS. Fine.

A second option is to propose an alternative to urban renewal for fixing your house. I’d probably support your interest in getting out your toolbox and calling in your friends to do a work camp.

Their are stages of commitment on the making of a young terrorist or suicide bomber or just plain suicide. Risk factors are probably broadband access and confirmation bias, family and cultural stress, transition/career & identity issues, perception of doom, disconnection & powerlessness in the face of militarism and ecocide. Debt and hunger. Protective factors at individial level are “antidepressant”: off line psycho-social engagement, nature, creative activity, group singing, physical fitness. Gainful employment, community gardening, tiny house construction and ownership, sustainability science and history of life-affirming movements.

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